Maimed
by CaptainOblivious1161
Summary: Ron finds another way to cope with loneliness and his feelings of unimportance. SUPER ANGST! has like two cursewords so K just in case REVAMPED! Should be a much better read.


**Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing so you can't tell me I do although I wish you could. cries**

**Alrighty pplz. This story is extremely angsty so yeah be completely prepared. hehe! I also know that I seem to really not like Ron but it's rather on the contrary. I LOVE RON! Well, his personality anyways. I LOVE RUPERT GRINT! He be HOT! Well, yeah! Here be my story! Enjoy!**

**Beta note: yes, I'm slightly less important and therefore my note thingy should be smaller but I'm lazy! Kozi is lazy! So shoot me! Not really! I love you K! (gravitation, he be a shooting me! Ok that was weird…) Ok well, I might not be the best beta so don't yell at the captain for mistakes, salute to her! Yell at me! (I is Kozi-Amaya-Chan) and if you read my stories, you'll know I can't spell but I shall try very hard to beta captain o's story ok! Ok! Btw, I love this story! It makes you love Ron so much! And it also makes you be very sad for him, (cries) Oh and if you read my stories you get a cookie! Please read Twisted Turns! Even if it's slash! And if you don't like slash read the Eragon fanfic. Oh no! Here comes the Captain! (salutes) Must go! BYEBYE! (gets slapped with her slinky ruler for adding such a long beta note)**

**Sorry guys, (slaps Kozi again with slinky ruler) she's a little weird sometimes. **

Ron sat alone on the couch in the Gryffindor common room clutching his arm. He was all alone and feeling extreme waves of depression. He had a single edged, magically sharpened razor blade lying on his knee. He bore a 3 inch long cut going diagonally down his left forearm, blood running freely toward his palm. He wasn't going to die, but he was going to see the scar and remember the time he had unleashed his feelings onto himself.

He heard someone come in and wiped the blood from his arm with the inside of his robes, pulled down his sleeve, and tucked the razor blade into his pocket, all in one swift movement. Harry had just walked in the portrait hole and was moving toward him.

"Hey mate! What's wrong?" he queried.

"Nothing," Ron replied blandly. He then went quickly around Harry out of the portrait hole and towards the grounds. He found a random tree by the lake and sat cross-legged leaning against it. He closed his eyes and waited for a breeze to cool his face. He knew Harry would be there soon to ask him more questions about his feelings. He was a good friend despite the recent fighting.

Sure enough, Harry came around the bend and sat in front of Ron, taking the same position save the leaning part.

"Really Ron, what's the matter?" he asked Ron.

"Really Harry," Ron started sarcastically. "It's nothing. I'm just not in a hey-let's-go- to-Zonko's-and-play-with-stupid-toys-mood alright? I just need to be by myself for a little while. See you at dinner." Ron stood and waited for a few seconds and when it was clear that Harry was not going to follow him, he left him sitting there as he worked his way to the boys' dormitory, hoping it was empty. He needed to get some of his frustrations out,

He was tired of constantly being thrown to the sidelines when duty called for Harry or when Hermione was praised for being the 'brightest witch of their year'. The last time he really had anything important to do was in their third year, and it was only because his rat was Peter Pettigrew. Other than that, he always either messed things up or just hadn't been involved period. He had confronted Harry about this only to have Harry yell at him for being ignorant and selfish. They hadn't talked much after this.

He pulled back the sleeve of his left arm to peek at the scars he had made, after first checking that the corridor was empty.

He wasn't really sure why he cut himself. He did know that the sudden loneliness had something to do with it.

Hermione had completely stopped talking to him after he blew up on her a few weeks after his argument with Harry. She was, as always, treating him a total idiot. Ron, being slightly more delicate after his quarrel with Harry, finally snapped. He wasn't an idiot, he just wasn't as smart as she was or wasn't as brave and heroic as Harry.

He took out the blade that was in his robe pocket and laid his arm upon his thigh.

He was finally in his dorm sitting cross-legged on his bed and it was finally empty after a couple of minutes of waiting.

He sat the razor onto his arm, sharp side ready to slice. He stopped for a second for a second and waited to see how long he could hold off. After about 30 or 40 seconds, he found he couldn't prolong it any longer. He pressed down and dragged the razor across his skin, flicking over lengths of old scars and creating new ones. He made a cut about 4 or 5 inches parallel to the one he had inflicted only half an hour earlier. He watched as the blood began to swell from the wound and run down his arm. He continued watching for around 10 seconds, and then stopped as it threatened to stain his bed sheet with drops of pain and suffering. He covered the severed portion of skin, feeling the blood congeal beneath his fingers.

"Ron?" said a feeble voice from behind him, causing him to jump, quickly pull down his sleeve, and twist around. There was Harry, looking as if he had just been slapped in the face. The act which he had just seen Ron doing was the equivalent to the action. Ron had just been caught red handed and he couldn't so anything to hide it. What could he do? What could he say?

'Everything,' Ron thought.

"_What is wrong?_" Harry asked him firmly but gently, voice overflowing with concern and guilt. He walked over to where Ron was sitting, legs now hanging over the side of the bed, and sat subtly down next to him.

"Nothing," he replied, voice screaming with dishonesty and hurt. He couldn't look Harry in eyes, so he rested his gaze on the frames of his round glasses.

"Bullshit," Harry said calmly. He made a grab for Ron's self-injured arm but he quickly pulled away before Harry could get a grip on it.

"Let me bloody _see_, Ron!" Harry pleaded, now resting his arms on each of Ron's shoulders. "It's not like I didn't just see you slicing your arm! Just _let me see_!"

Ron, with no haste what so ever, reluctantly held out his arm so that Harry could pull up sleeve and examine his scars and freshly made cuts.

There was either a scar or a cut on every inch of his forearm. Thin silver lines all over, almost all of them over 2 inches in length.

"How long has this been going on? Why didn't you come to me? You can always talk to me!" Harry asked his best friend. He hated to see Ron so fragile.

"All year," Ron replied, now hanging his head. They were in their 7th and final year at Hogwarts with only 3 months left in the school year. "And I did go to you! I always do! But you were so caught up in your whole I-gotta-find-the-Horcruxes-and-Voldemort-plan I didn't ever get the time of day! Besides, we were fighting." Ron said, shunning tears away. He got up and started to go to the bathroom to wash his hands and arm of the now dried blood. Harry followed him but Ron shoved him off and told him that he would talk to him later. Harry went to follow him but was again pushed away.

"I need to be alone, Harry," Ron pleaded. It was completely true. He felt guilty for being so selfish. He couldn't even begin to think of cutting himself now.

"Why, so you can fuck up your arm some more? Give me the weapon of choice right bloody now or I'll petrify you where you stand!" Harry said heatedly, pulling out his wand.

Ron waved the use of wands unnecessary with one hand while pulling out the blade with the other. He tossed it at Harry. Harry, frozen from the shock of Ron's failure to resist, watched it hit his chest softly and then fall to the floor in front of his feet.

"Here, take it, I don't give a shit if you have it or if it's in the garbage." With that, Ron turned and went out the portrait hole toward the bathroom to clean himself up, leaving Harry standing there, mouth gaping.

Harry picked the blade up off of the floor and brought it closer to her face to look at it. He noticed the very edge of it was covered in sorrow ridden blood. He put the in his pocket and headed down to the common room trusting, by the sound in Ron's voice, that he would not hurt himself while in the bathroom. He wasn't going to tell Hermione yet. He planned to talk to Ron about it. He felt guilty that he hadn't been there for Ron when he needed him the most.

Ron sit on the floor in a random stall in the bathroom, after first cleaning the blood from his hands and arm, staring at his newly cut skin. He ran his fingers up and down across the top of his old and new demonstrations of pain. The bumpy texture felt oddly comforting under his fingers. For some weird reason he jerked his hand away from his arm and quickly pulled the sleeve down. He couldn't and wouldn't look at the cuts for a very long time. He stood and hesitantly left the bathroom and went back up to the common room. He hoped Harry hadn't told Hermione yet. He wanted to do this himself.

As he reached the common room, he noticed it was empty except for Harry, who was on the couch with his arms resting on his knees, closely examining the razor blade that had relieved his pain for an entire year.

He looked up at Ron and stood, shoving the blade into his pocket.

"Hey," he said feebly.

"I'm going to stop," Ron informed Harry. Now that he knew, he couldn't face him while he was cutting himself, each day a little deeper, hoping that one day he would cut too deep. At this satisfactory statement, Harry did something that he did **_very_** rarely. He pulled Ron into a tight, friendly-but-caring hug. Ron hesitated for a second from shock before returning the hug, though not even as close to as tight.

"Uhm, I think you're…suffocating…me!" Ron managed to squeeze out, having no air in his lungs.

"Oh, sorry, mate!" Harry started, sounding happy for him but still mad about the whole thing. "I'm just glad you're…um…quitting. Are you going to tell Hermione?" Harry said sounding serious all of a sudden.

"Yeah, but in a little while, when we're alone," Ron answered. "NOT LIKE THAT!" he hissed as Harry gave him a suspicious look.

"Oh, sorry," Harry said, shoving a laugh back down his throat.

"I just want to be able to open up to her and _show_ her," Ron said, pulling his sleeve down and holding up his arm, scars facing Harry.

"I get it." Harry then led Ron out to the Great Hall for dinner. They picked a spot closest to the door, after first establishing that Hermione had not arrived yet. They slowly started eating hoping to stall until she arrived. They caught up on quidditch, Ron having isolated himself from everything, including quitting the team, shortly after Hermione and he ceased conversation. About 10 minutes had passed until they saw Hermione enter through the big oak doors. As Ron looked at her, he realized he wasn't ready to tell her yet. He looked at Harry and whispered "I'm not ready yet!" At this, Harry nodded and turned to face Hermione as she sat down next to him.

"Ron! What are you doing here!" She had gotten over what had happened and was just waiting for Ron to come around.

"I've decided to give the whole silent treatment thing up," he said glancing at Harry. "So what've you been up to?" At that, Hermione took the chance to tell them about _everything_ in _all_ of her classes. Usually, this would annoy Ron, but he was just glad that the subject had changed off of Ron. He had thought he was ready to tell his best friend for almost 7 years that he had been unleashing his rage and sadness onto himself instead of Malfoy or a wall like he used to. 'Oh well, I'll just tell her in few days,' he thought to himself.

For the rest of dinner, Ron half listened to Harry and Hermione argued over whether Malfoy had escaped with Snape or was killed already by Voldemort and half thought about how he was going to hint to her about his cutting habit. He decided that he would nonchalantly scratch his arm every 5 minutes or so and then nonchalantly wince at the pain of hitting his cuts. When he did this, Hermione would give him a weird look but not say anything. This, to Ron's relief, only went on for about a day and 1/2 before she said something to him.

"Why do you keep scratching your arm, and why does it hurt!" she asked him suspiciously.

"Well, um, okay. I, um," He opened up his mouth up to finish the sentence but his throat closed up over the words before they could touch his tongue. He cleared his throat and tried again.

"I-I" He paused again to stop his stuttering. "Can we talk?" he said shortening his sentence.

"Sure, why wouldn't we be able to?" Ron shrugged his shoulders and they both went out of the doors and out to the grounds to talk. They went and sat against a tree by the lake, Hermione turning towards Ron to face him.

"So what's up? Are you going to answer my questions now?"

"Yes, but I think showing you would be easier. I'll explain more after you see." At that, he reached down, not removing his gaze from Hermione's, and pulled up his sleeve to reveal his maimed arm. Ron looked down then back at Hermione hinting that she look at his scars and scars-to-be. He waited for some kind of response from her as she peered at his arm, silent and motionless, but received none.

"'Mione? You okay?" he inquired as she reached over and took his arm, slowly stroking his arm, a tear falling from her chin and onto his arm. Then another and another tear fell as she began to shake from crying.

"Please don't cry Hermione. I'm sorry," he pleaded. He didn't want her feel guilty because he chose to isolate himself away from her. There was another wave of silence before Hermione spoke.

"Why?" she asked, barely squeezing the word from the grip of her throat.

He paused for a second, screwing up his face as he searched for a way to put the reasons into words.

"I'm not completely sure, actually. Maybe it's because I'm neither as smart as you nor as heroic and brave as Harry. I think it finally got to me after that fight with Harry," he paused, seeing the extreme look of guilt on Hermione's face. "Place, please don't be guilty Hermione," he started, hands now on her shoulders. "_I_ did this to myself. _I_ chose to let it get to me. _I _chose to be selfish and not go to you or Harry. I know you can't help being smart and I know Harry can't help being the one who had to kill Voldemort. Please stop crying. I promise you on my family's life that I will_ never_ do this again," he finished, pointing at his arm with his eyes then bringing them back to meet Hermione's. "Let's go back, it's starting to get pretty chilly." He got up, took off his cloak and put it on the now standing Hermione, after he noticed her shiver from the sudden gust of freezing wind. He too was extremely cold, but he cared more about her than himself, though the feeling was pushed from his heart the day he picked up a razor blade. They made their way up and up the stairs, finally reaching the common room. There was no reason to enter the Great Hall, seeing as how dinner had ended.

As they entered the portrait hole to the common room, they saw only Harry sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the fire, reflections of red and orange flames dancing on his face. He turned, noticing their arrival, and stood up to greet them.

"You tell her?" he asked Ron, receiving only a nod in response. Hermione gave them both a puzzled look, eyes politely asking for an explanation.

"He caught me, uh, in the act a few days ago," he mumbled, head hanging slightly.

"Fine," she said plainly. "Shall we catch up a little more Ronald? We never finished our conversation," she said, voice growing sterner.

"Uh, okay."

"So when did you begin your rampage of self-destruction?" She sounded a little more heated now that she had about 10 minutes to think about the issue.

"Right after you and I had that gigantic argument," he responded, a little surprised at the intense tone in her voice.

"Wow, that's most of the year!" she said, voice abruptly changing from pissed to hurt. She couldn't get mad at him now. He had already stopped cutting. "Why didn't you want to talk to anyone? You could've come to me, even if we weren't talking," she said, her voice slightly higher and quieter.

"You fooled me! When we get in a fight you always ignore me a--!"

"Oh, why does it even matter anymore! You're not cutting anymore, right?" Ron nodded in response. "And you've probably already gone over all this with Harry anyway," she said, plopping herself down on the couch. Ron was still nodding in response in agreement with her last statement. Then, realizing about 15 seconds later that he was still nodding, abruptly stopped and got up to sit next to Hermione on the couch.

"Don't worry about it 'Mione," he assured her. He raised a hand and peered at his wristwatch. It was almost 9:00pm.

"Bloody hell, I've got homework to do and almost curfew." He thought for a second about whether he should do it now and be up until midnight or wake up early and do it. Either way, he would get the same grade. He would just be grumpier if he stayed up until midnight. "I s'pose I'll just do it in the morning," he said finally making up his mind.

At that, the boys and Hermione went their separate ways to their own gender's dormitory.

Before they even went anywhere, Hermione pulled Ron into a bone crushing hug, which Ron didn't complain about.

'She's too damn little to be that damn strong!' he thought to himself after she finally let go of him.

When Harry and Ron got upstairs, they quickly pulled on their pajamas and got into bed. A few minutes passed in silence and finally Harry spoke.

"Ron?"

"Whaaat, Harry?"

"Are you okay?"

"Not yet, it's only been 2 days. Who would be? I will _eventually_ be fine."

"You're right. I'll talk to you in the morning.

With that, both boys rolled over and fell into a blissful, dreamless sleep. Ron would _eventually_ be okay.


End file.
